Monday, 20 March 2017

Coming up (way too fast): Camp NaNo! (and what I'm up to with that)

(Sorry Camp NaNo people for using your picture I hope you don't mind!)

Camp NaNoWriMo is in - *checks calendar* - less than two weeks!

You've probably heard of Camp. I know a lot of you people in the young-Christian-writer blog circles will have participated before. Katie Grace - a wonderful teen writer and blogger - wrote a post called 5 Reasons to Participate in Camp NaNoWriMo, which you should definitely read if you haven't already. (Again, if you're in those particular blog circles, you've probably already read it!)

But I thought I'd do a bit of an informal post. More of a chat, really. (Or a ramble. That would be more accurate.)

I thought I was set for Camp. I logged on, tried to get through all the mail I never read from last Camp, commented on a cabin-finding forum, and created a project. A superhero story, actually - I was going to branch into a new (for me) subgenre. I was - and still am - so excited about those characters.

They turned out to be the problem.

I have too many. Seven, eight? superpowered teens (no superstrength, I have to add - and only one can fly) and I wanted to get inside the heads of every. single. one. They all have awesome stories I want to tell, insecurities I want to explore, downsides to their powers I want to exploit. (Did I say exploit? I meant... protect them from.) And I couldn't do all that in one coherent story.

Sooo... I have plenty of other stories I've written a page of and not had time to work on further. I guess I'll pick one and officially change my project. But I'd like to make it a not-too-serious story... I want to be able to use the dares forum this year. ;)

Oh, and while the comment on the cabin-finding forum didn't work out, a lovely writer from over at GoTeenWriters invited me to her cabin, so that will be awesome (thanks, Sarah!!). I'm very relieved... I was not doing random cabin assignment again!

How's your Camp preparation going? Smoothly? Or have there been hiccups? What's your project? Have you found a cabin yet? I'd love to hear!

15 comments:

EEEEP. YOU'RE DOING CAMP. This is my first time. I did NaNoWriMo in November (well, I didn't originally want to do it, but then I started late...it's a long story :P) and at first I wasn't sure if I would do Camp. Then I learned you can set editing goals!

I have that same problem! I always end up with a dozen characters that I MUST write about, and then the novel ends up being waaaay too long.

Your first time doing Camp? Awesome! It's better than the full NaNo... in my opinion... because it's so much more flexible - like you said, you can set editing goals (in words or hours!). (Also November's NaNo has the minimum of 50k and seriously my best ever was 20k so I like Camp's option for setting your goal at something a bit more achievable for me.)

How did you go with November's NaNo? (prob. great, right? I have no idea why I can't get 50k, other teens write 140k...)

My best ever word count for a NaNo was 20k, and when I compared myself to some other young writers who were getting 100k+, I felt I wasn't doing very well. But I need to remember that everyone's different; I do a lot of editing while I write (which does NOT help for NaNo); and 20k for me was a HUGE success that I didn't know I was capable of.

So if your 7k was the most you'd ever written on a story, YOU WIN. *gives you very late celebration cake* Because that is a big deal!

Oh and same with the fact you have lots of characters whose POVs you want to write from! I originally had five POVs but realized some characters were unnecessary in telling the story, but could work as side characters! So experiment :) you have a few days before NaNo haha!

Thank you, Andrea! :) *cheers you back* I know you said over on Katie Grace's Camp post that April was a bit busy for you; did you end up deciding whether or not to join in with Camp?

Yes, I thought about making some into side characters, and that would be a really good idea. But I love them all! One or two, I don't mind if I don't hear tell their story, but there's about six I WANT to hear from their perspective. I don't know if I could pick favourites! ;) I'll have to deal with it eventually, I know, but for now I've put it aside to look at in a more leisurely fashion once Camp is over. Because I do not need the stress of a difficult story while I'm doing Camp!! ;D

Anyway, I'm super glad you're a part of our cabin. I hope we haven't been too weird for you.

Most of my prep was done before camp since I'm finishing up my NaNo novel. I made the 50k in November, but then December hit and I needed to put it away for a little while. So yeah, I'm super excited about this month. I'm so close!

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